A Season's Romance

Adele, a beautiful girl of 24, was on her way to Europe for a year of study of art history, when she met Matt McGraw. He was 43, a pleasant, brassy man, twice divorced, and a reformed drinker. He worked for an advertising agency and made a lot of money. Adele was shocked at how much she enjoyed the luxurious times she had with him during his 5 week stay in Europe. She and her mother had no money - only rich friends. Her fine education had been achieved with so much effort that she was mentally exhausted. Her year of study abroad was miserable. When she got back to New York she was delighted to take up with Matt again and go out to expensive places. She felt that she was achieving nothing at her job at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her romance with Matt ended when his firm sent him to Texas and he wanted her to come along as his wife. She could not picture that, refused, and resumed her old life with her mother - either planning how to gain invitations to rich friends' homes, or going to intellectual parties where the people were all poor.

Under the southern portion of the city exists its negative image: a network of more than two hundred miles of galleries, rooms, and chambers.

As the years passed, Tom grew more entrenched in his homelessness. He was absorbed in lofty fantasies and private missions, aware of the basest necessities and the most transcendent abstractions, and almost nothing in between.